Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who has not been allowed to enter her country since 1998 and has been staying in Sweden, now wants to settle in Kolkata.
“Ideally, I want to go back to Dhaka but I am not allowed to go back to my motherland,” Nasreen told The Indian Express. “The next best option is of course Kolkata, which I consider my second home.”
Another reason, she says, is that she wishes to continue writing and since her mode is Bengali, she wants to be around the region where it is spoken. “If I live abroad, I will die as a writer,” the author says. “To survive as a writer, I will have to talk in Bangla, mix up with Bengal is. That is how you get materials for your stories.” The second part of her autobiography Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood) is going to he released soon.
The state government doesn't seem to have any problems with her plans to stay here. Nirupam Sen, Minister for Commerce and Industries and No. 2 in the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Cabinet, said so to The Indian Express.
Nasreen, who is on a three-month
visa to India and is guarded round-the-clock by a contingent of armed police
at the hotel where she's staying, has already started looking for a house
in the city. “Staying in a hotel you cannot get the feel of the society.
For this you have to live in some locality without any police guards,”
she says. If she isn't able to find a house now, Nasreen, adds, she will
return in winter with a six-month visa.